Elliott Sweet

Navigating Customer Insights — Microsoft


overview

When I joined the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights team, it had just started getting a UI off the ground since being separated from PowerBI and becoming a stand alone web app. One of the first problems I tackled was stabilizing the Information Architecture based personas and user journeys.


my role

I worked as the primary designer for this experience with input from my design team as well as my direct manager and PM representatives from our larger product team. My design team consisted of myself, another interaction designer and content designer.

 

challenges

  • Balancing abstract user personas with key business features

  • Considering platform-wide consistency while understanding the unique product needs

  • Unraveling and understanding complex data administration systems

Research & planning


methods

  • Platform consistency analysis

  • Competitive analysis

  • Persona building interviews

  • Experience mapping

  • User journeys

Design


Tools used

  • Figma 

  • Azure Dev Ops

 

Process

We went through several iterations balancing the requests from the PM team with the user journey maps we developed through our persona interviews and the short timeframes we were facing at the end of our ramp up to GA. 

Since the product had only been in preview and all of our users had been hand-walked through the product by Microsoft representatives, we struggled to help the PMs understand the need for an uncomplicated and better organized navigation experience, but once they saw our proposals and how they were tied to business objectives they agreed to implement the changes.

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Delivery & Implementation


strategy

Since we were running on short deadlines, we did T-shirt sized iterations for the changes we presented. Ultimately, we had a first round of changes implemented and then rolled out a second set of changes the following sprint.


outcomes

While some architectural issues still remained after implementation we were able to drive better alignment between Customer Insights and the Dynamics platform, solve complicated organization issues that existed in the product, and lay the groundwork for additional features that were set to be released in the upcoming semester.